emptying a file and keeping its ownership

[John F Haugh II]

In article <187 at raysnec.UUCP> shwake at raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) writes:
>allbery at NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR) writes:
>>	% echo > file
>>	% ls -s file
>>	0 file
>
>	Not quite. On the systems I know, echo outputs a new line character.
>Thus your ostensibly zero'ed file would have a size of 1 byte.

Yes, quite ;-).  The C shell has a builtin echo function which does
exactly what Brandon showed.  Watch -
--
Script is typescript, started Thu Jan  3 08:17:12 1991
rpp386-> /bin/csh
1 - rpp386-> echo > file
2 - rpp386-> ls -l file
-rw-r-----   1 jfh      root           0 Jan  3 08:17 file
3 - rpp386-> exit
4 - rpp386-> rpp386-> 
Script done Thu Jan  3 08:17:31 1991
--
As you can see "file" has a zero length.
-- 
John F. Haugh II                             UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
Ma Bell: (512) 832-8832                           Domain: jfh at rpp386.cactus.org
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